


Fragments | MCU Oneshot

by DemigodOfAgni



Category: Captain America: CIvil War (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alters, DID!Peter Parker, Death, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Hurt, Mental Disorder, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Death, Multiple Personalities, Oneshot, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker has DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder, Peter Parker has Mental Health Issues, Peter Parker is a Mess, Sad, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark tries his best to be supportive, be kind, okay??, we all deserve respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26693335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemigodOfAgni/pseuds/DemigodOfAgni
Summary: Tony Stark always does his research.He did it when Nick Fury turned up at his home in Florida rambling about 'the Avengers Initiative'. He did it when Thaddeus Ross came up to the Avengers wielding the Sokovia Accords.Tony Stark always does his research, and he was always prepared.But he wasn't prepared for this.Getting no response, Peter Parker pulled out his earbuds and stared at Tony with wide brown eyes.'Tis a one shot taking place during CA: Civil War and SM: Homecoming, where Peter Parker suffers from a mental disorder, and Tony has to figure out how to handle it. After all, Tony's not really an "empathetic people person", right?TRIGGER WARNINGS► Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)► Mentions of death
Relationships: May Parker & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & James "Rhodey" Rhodes
Comments: 28
Kudos: 180





	Fragments | MCU Oneshot

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Waterspout](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14949863) by [FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls/pseuds/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls). 



> This idea had been sitting in a collection of one shot ideas I wrote a long time ago after being inspired by:
> 
> ► FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls' story "The Waterspout"  
> (you can find the link somewhere above)  
> ► Marvel Comics' "Infinity Warps: Arachknight"  
> (I know a few sites with online comics)
> 
> This story covers the mental issue of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). There are mentions of death, so if this is something that triggers you, feel free to skip to the end.
> 
> Y'all being comfortable around stories like these is something I value. If you still want to read this, go ahead! I have done my research and have done my best in trying to present DID in a respectable way, and if there is something that I have interpreted incorrectly, please tell me!!! I cannot stress how much I absolutely don't want to present information that may accidentally display the wrong idea.
> 
> To add onto this, here are some points that deal with common misconceptions and mis-info concerning DID:  
> ► DID manifests before the ages of 7-9. This is when the first alter splits, and after this first initial split, many more alters can manifest after this age.  
> ► DID is the result of repeated/chronic trauma. These events have to continuously occur before the ages of 7-9 for DID to manifest.
> 
> And now...enjoy the short! (it's eleven thousand words, lol)

* * *

**_Fragments_ **

* * *

Tony Stark always does his research.

He did it when Nick Fury turned up at his home in Florida rambling about the 'Avengers Initiative'. He did it when Captain America wasn't as dead as everyone thought he was. He did it when the Norse myths touched down on Earth, and when genius men turned into rampaging green beasts. He did it when Hydra clawed up from the ground and when his own invention turned its gaze to exterminating humanity. He did it when Thaddeus Ross came up to the Avengers wielding the Sokovia Accords.

Tony Stark always does his research, and he was always prepared.

But he wasn't prepared for this.

He wasn't prepared to sit in a small but somewhat homey apartment in Queens, where an (admittedly) attractive Italian woman served him (relatively nice) walnut date loaves and chatted about the things adults usually chatted to Tony about.

He wasn't prepared for when said Italian woman's teenager nephew walked in with earbuds shoved down his ears and an old DVD player in his hands. Tony and the Italian woman (May Parker, he reminded himself) both quietened when her nephew slipped his bag off and nestled it between the legs of a nearby coffee table as he called out to his aunt.

Getting no response, Peter Parker pulled out his earbuds and stared at Tony with wide brown eyes.

(Tony wondered vaguely if that was what he'd looked like when he was younger, seeking for his own father's pride.)

'What— ...what are you doing—?' Peter squeaked, quickly dropping the DVD player. 'Hey! Uh, I'm— I'm— I'm Peter!'

'Tony,' Tony said.

'What are...what are you— what are you— what are you doing here?' questioned Peter. Tony didn't know God had accidentally equipped the younger generation with stuttering.

'It's about time we met,' Tony said simply, clapping his hands as he leaned over the back of the couch to get a better look at Peter. 'You've been getting my e-mails, right? Right?'

'Yeah, yeah...'

The kid was smart, insanely smart if he had managed to land himself at Midtown School of Science and Technology. But the kid looked so lost, so caught off-guard that he had the decency to look like a baby deer locked in the path of a speeding car.

'Regarding the...' Peter trailed off.

'You didn't tell me about the grant,' May piped up, grinning from the lie Tony had fed her when they first met.

'About the grant!' agreed Peter.

Tony could see something swirl within Peter's expression; the way his delighted smile upon first glancing at Tony stretched into something taut, the way his jaw tightened, the way his fingers wouldn't stop twitching. To someone else, it would look like Peter was getting over the initial wave of shock and delight; to Tony, he could see the bubbling of concerned suspicion in Peter's young face.

'The September Foundation,' Tony supplied, hoping the kid would catch on. 'Remember when you applied?'

'Yeah.'

'I approved, so now we're in business.'

'You didn't tell me anything,' May playfully berated her nephew. 'What's up with that? You keeping secrets from me now?'

A subtle hint of terror entered Peter's eyes. 'Why, I just, I just...' Peter faltered. 'I just know how much you love surprises, so I thought I would let you know...wha...anyway, what did I apply for?'

Tony answered the question for him. 'That's what I'm here to hash out.'

'Okay. Hash, hash out, okay.'

Another minute of back-and-forth dialogue, and Tony had managed to steer Peter into his room with his aunt's permission. Peter stared at Tony as he bolted the door shut. Spotting the nearby trashcan, Tony spat the small piece of the walnut date loaf into it, admitting, 'As walnut date loaves go, that wasn't bad.'

'When did you have my aunt's date loaves?' Peter asked, turning to him confusion.

Tony shrugged, clapping his hands to rid them of the small crumbs on his fingers. 'She offered it to me,' he said. 'And like I said, there are things worse than this.'

'Why are you here?'

The question was cold, quick, straight to the point.

Tony decided to linger in the silence he was given. He looked around the kid's room, eyeing the collection of old computers and hardware components that were piled up on the desk in the corner; with the cool afternoon light washing the room, Tony was reminded of the days he would scavenge useless parts of his father's inventions.

'Whoa, what do we have here?' he asked in mock surprise, walking towards the desk and running a finger over the long-outdated technology. 'Retro tech, huh? Thrift store? Salvation Army?'

'The garbage, actually.'

'You're a dumpster diver,' Tony observed.

'P— I definitely did not apply for your grant,' Peter stated firmly, his voice soft and low.

'Nah-ah! Me first,' said Tony as he reached into his pocket for his phone. He held it out for Peter to see, then double-tapped it so it beamed up the holographic images Tony had last seen on the device. Tinged in blue light, a video of the web-slinging pyjama-wearing Spider-Man rose up between Tony and Peter; the Spider-Man in the recording was swinging through the streets, movements fluid and akin to an Olympic athlete.

Gesturing to the video, Tony turned to Peter and said, 'Quick question of the rhetorical kind: That's you, right?'

Peter was silent. He was eyeing the video, jaw set, the blue light from the holographic video making his brown combed hair look blonde and reminding Tony too awfully of Steve. The bouncing personality Tony had seen in Peter shrivelled into something colder, with Peter full-on glaring at him.

Peter partially growled, 'What do you wan—?'

Peter declined, 'No! What do you— what do you mean? I mean, I— oh, is that Spider-Man?'

Tony got the feeling that there was something else lurking in the room – probably something of the elephant-sized variety – but he ignored the paranoia. Instead, he pressed on. 'Look at you go. Wow!' He pointed to Spider-Man in the video as he swung right in front of a speeding car; the superhero held up his hands and caught the car by its chassis, stopping it from barrelling into a bus. 'Nice catch. Three thousand pounds, forty miles an hour. That's not easy. You got mad skills.'

'No, seriously, I don't know what you mean,' Peter insisted. 'I mean, what are you saying? Are you saying that's me? Spider-Man? I mean, sure, it'd be _so_ _cool_ , being able to swing around on webs like that, but no. No way – you got the wrong guy, Mr. Stark.'

'Mmm-hmm,' Tony said.

'Also, the September Foundation thing? I didn't apply for it. I _distinctly_ remember not applying for it, because I'm in high school, which means I'm underage.' Peter scratched his neck. 'Wait, maybe there's another Peter Parker in the city and you accidentally came to the wrong one—?'

'I do my research, kid,' Tony stated. 'You're the only Peter Parker living in Queens.' He looked up and around Peter's room. There was a closet sitting snug beside the door, and a twin bed taking up most of the room. A bedside table with a tiny lamp and a digital clock. The ceiling was pastel white, with an occasional clump of dust and the trap door sitting just above him.

Tony grabbed a nearby metre ruler that was leaning against the wall as Peter continued rambling far-fetched theories as to why Tony had made an appearance in his apartment: 'Is this something you're doing for Midtown? Are you here to sign us up for the grant? If it is, that would be _so cool_ —'

'Oh, what have we here?'

Peter turned around, eyes comically wide as Tony stabbed the metre ruler into the trapdoor, flinging it open. Almost immediately, a bundle of red and blue cloth tumbled out of it, dangling in midair thanks to a cord of white rope that was tied around it.

Tony smiled smugly at the bundled-up Spider-Man costume, then at Peter.

Peter was gaping at the bundle, pure confusion painting his naïve face. He pointed at it. 'What is that?' he asked after a moment of complete bemusement, his eyes trailing up and down from the bundle to the ceiling, as if he'd never see that hatch before.

Admittedly, he was doing a good job of playing dumb; he'd probably convince Tony that he wasn't Spider-Man.

But Tony did his research. And the research was never wrong.

_Spider-Man swung into existence roughly five months ago._

'Oh, quit with the whole act, kid,' Tony told him, poking the dangling bundle with the ruler. 'I know you're Spider-Man. I know you're participating in illegal vigilante practices without any government authorisation; I can very much turn you in and have you sent off to court, or juvenile prison.'

'So that's what this,' Peter said, voice suddenly turning sharp. 'You're here to hunt me down. Great.' He snatched the bundled Spider-Man costume and threw it into the pile of clothes that was slightly growing in the space between the closet and the wall next to the door.

'Actually, I'm here for the contrary.' Tony sunk into a chair by the wall and watched as the teenager promptly sat down on his bed, glaring at Tony.

'What are you here for, then?'

Tony stayed quiet, fiddling with a piece of metal— no, a small cartridge of sorts, he found lodged in a small space behind Peter's desk. It was sturdy but light, and Tony figured it held some of the web concoction Spider-Man used. 'You know what I think is really cool? This webbing,' Tony said. He flung it at Peter, who caught it without ever looking up; Tony took note of that. He continued, 'That tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?'

'...Damn right, I did,' Peter said, pursing his lips.

Tony nodded. 'And climbing the walls, how you doing that? Adhesive gloves?'

'That's...that's all me.'

'Oh.'

Tony needed to conduct more research.

_His powers are generated from the cellular level._

He picked up the Spider-Man costume and pried the mask from the bunch of cloth before he sunk into a chair by the wall. The mask was a ratty thing, hastily put together. It was essentially a red cotton sack with outrageously-tinted ski goggles sewn into the areas where Peter would look out from. Tony, being the responsible adult that he was, pressed the goggles to his eyes and chortled, 'Lordy! Can you even _see_ in these?'

'Yes!' Peter snapped, getting up to grab the mask from Tony. 'Yes, I can! I can see in those. Okay? When whatever happened, happened...it's like my senses have been dialed to eleven. There's way too much input, so Pe— I use these to help me focus.'

'You're in dire need of an upgrade,' Tony commented, already mentally adding that task to his ever-growing list of tasks. 'Systemic, top to bottom. 100-point restoration. _That's_ why I'm here.'

'You're here just to give me an upgrade? No offense, I could always find that Melvin dude people keep talking about these days and get him to make me a suit.'

'Yeah, no.'

Peter huffed and turned away, rebelliousness seemingly draining out of his body and leaving him looking as unsettled as he was before. It was like a switch; some moments he just got riled up, and the others he retreated back into himself.

Tony thought maybe getting a little insight wouldn't hurt. Voice soft, he asked, 'Why're you doing this?' When Peter looked up questioningly, Tony elaborated, 'I gotta know. What's your MO? What gets you outta that twin bed in the morning?'

'Because...' Peter bit his lip. He was hesitating, Tony could see that. Like he was warring with himself, trying to pick out the best option. 'Because I've been _me_ my whole life, and w— I've had these powers for six months.' Peter gestured to the small of books in the corner of his desk, saying, 'W...I read books, I build computers...and, yeah, playing football wouldn't be so bad. But w— I haven't then, so I shouldn't now.'

'Sure, because you're different,' Tony said, noting the small traces of understanding in his voice.

'Exactly,' Peter said softly. He looked at his fingers, as if something was slipping through them and out of his reach. 'But I can't tell anybody that, so I'm not different. To them, I'm just...Peter Parker.'

Peter's voice suddenly faltered, and he took in a shuddering breath. Tony, being the most apathetic human to ever exist, suddenly felt his chest contract. He wondered dimly if he had already broken the kid with simply his presence. God, what was happening—?

'When you can do the things that I can,' Peter started quietly, 'but you don't...' Peter's eyes flicked up to meet Tony's. '...and then the bad things happen...they happen because of you.'

_Peter Parker's uncle died in an accident._

Tony couldn't help but notice the sharp but equally blunt look in the kid's gaze. It was like someone had shown him a horror film, but it all focused on only one person: Peter. It was a mature, lonely but determined look, something no child, or a teenager for that matter, should be able to possess.

Tony pressed his lips together in thought. To someone else, he might look unaffected and unmoved by the kid's rather poignant statement, but Tony's thoughts were whirling wildly; he was _absolutely_ touched by it, no matter what everyone else thought. Because this teenager, this literal child, lucked out on powers in what could be a mere accident. Well, everything started because of an accident, didn't it? But Tony could see it, in the few minutes of having talked with him, the way Peter spoke about powers that Tony could have gained but never did:

It was that Peter Parker was a far better person than Tony could ever dream to be.

Peter had faced death, and probably drowned in guilt. Tony had faced death, and already is drowning in guilt. They both stepped out of the shadows to protect others simply because had the will and the power to do so. The only thing stopping them from becoming the same person was that Peter chose to cling to and expand upon his life's own youthfulness and its treasures, whereas Tony stepped back and pushed people away in order to grow in his own shallow world. Whether Peter believed in that or not, it may not matter now, but Tony had to make him realise that.

'So,' Tony started, leaning against the wall, clearing his throat to rid that horrible bitter taste welling up deep in his mouth, his eyes snapping away from Peter's face to look at his own hands because _God_ , that kid was so young yet he had grown so fast and it almost _hurt_ to look at a youthful and pained face like Peter's—

'—you wanna look out for the little guy?' continued Tony, pulling his spiralling to a halt. 'You wanna do your part? Make the world a better place, all that, right?'

Peter looked up, the hard look in his eyes softening slightly. 'Yeah,' he agreed after a moment, voice low. 'Yeah, just looking out...for the little guy. That's what it is.'

He wasn't sure what motivated him to move from his little spot by the wall, but Tony only realised what he was doing when he was halfway to Peter's bed. He glanced down at Peter's leg, seeing it basically took up the entirety of one side. He pointed at it, murmuring, 'I'm gonna sit here, so you move the leg.'

Peter flinched in surprise, as if he too didn't notice Tony walking up to him. He quicky moved further up the bed, leaving ample room for Tony to sink into the mattress; the bed springs creaked under his weight.

Tony turned towards Peter, who immediately looked at his feet. Tony raised a hand towards him, but he hesitated. What was he doing? He just got a kid – a _superpowered_ kid, no less – to spill the beans about his life whilst informing him about the Accords and wanting to recruit him for support. That was all kinds of horrid, trying to manipulate someone like that.

But then again, it seemed as if Peter had manipulated himself – he went through something tragic, Tony could tell by that ghostly look in eyes, and had taken it upon himself to figure out a way to alleviate that pain. Spider-Man happened to be the answer.

His hand had been in the air for too long. Belatedly, Tony let it drop on Peter's shoulder, his hand clasping reassuringly around the boy's slender joint. Peter nodded slowly, then a little quickly as he acknowledged Tony's action.

Usually it was at this point where the kids would faint from physical contact of Tony's sheer greatness. He was impressed for the kid to be holding out so long.

'Do you have a passport?' asked Tony, turning to Peter.

The kid blinked, then whipped his around to look at Tony, eyes scrunched up in surprise and confusion. 'Uh, no,' he chuckled nervously. 'I don't even have a driver's license.'

Tony already knew that. He'd done his research; the kid had only turned fourteen seven months ago. He would be fifteen soon.

'Have you ever been to Germany?' asked Tony.

'No,' Peter said slowly. 'Why? Is it for the September Foundation? Wait, did we already talk about the grant? I, I might have forgotten about it. Sorry.'

'Oh, don't worry, the grant's just a cover,' Tony said. When he saw Peter blinking in utter bafflement, Tony elaborated, 'If you want, I can make a whole fake certificate for you as proof. Besides, I think you'll love the place. We can leave in a couple of days.'

'What? I can't go to Germany!' Peter exclaimed, shocked at such an outrageous suggestion.

'And why's that?' Tony asked.

Peter bit his lip, a worried look in his eye. 'I got...homework,' he said hesitantly.

Tony scoffed at Peter's answer. 'I'm going to pretend you didn't say that,' he grumbled.

Peter then he shook his head suddenly, as if trying to shake the worry out of his mind and to get Tony's attention. 'Besides, my place is here, in Queens. In New York. Why would you want to take me to _Germany_ of all places?'

Then Peter scratched his head. 'Wait, wait, if you do take me to Germany...what'll happen to me? What'll happen to me, and my school? Is it— is it like a break or something?'

Tony frowned. The kid's priorities were all over the place. 'Kid,' Tony told him softly, 'you said so yourself that with the power that you have, you would do all it took to do the right thing.'

'I did?' asked Peter. Then he paused, and said, 'I mean, yeah. Yeah, I did.'

'Well, the only reason I'm here today, talking to you...' Tony leaned in closer. 'Remember when I talked about participating in illegal vigilante practices without any government authorisation? Well, there are people out there, right now, doing those very things.'

'What's in it for me?' asked Peter, an edge to his tone. 'Why should I help you? What would you do if I declined? Would you turn me in?'

Tony had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from yelling out a _What the heck? No!_

Instead, he let out a slow breath, and said, 'These people...they're the _Avengers_ , Peter. The people who protect this city, the country, the _planet_ , half of them are gone trying to solve their own selfish problems.'

He knew he shouldn't be discussing this in the open. He knew he shouldn't be discussing this in a teenager's room, no less, with the kid's aunt being the only person caring for him and would no doubt leap out with claws unsheathed to protect him. He knew he shouldn't be discussing this outside any government or Avengers facility because any citizen who knew about it would be at risk.

But Tony could see the way Peter's hackles rose up, the way he stiffened and looked out the window, craning his neck as if he tried to catch a glimpse of the world's renowned heroes run astray.

Tony could see the gears turning in Peter's head, and he knew the kid was thinking things over. Maybe even deduced an outcome.

'Might be a little dangerous,' Tony mocked slightly as he moved to get up. He stretched his legs a little as he said, 'Better tell Aunt Hottie I'm taking you on a field trip—'

_THWIP._

A sharp snap, and Tony was suddenly smacked against the wall. He huffed in surprise, eyes wide as he looked around for the source of whatever that had pushed him away from the kid so quickly—

There was a glob of white encasing Tony's fist, gluing him to the door. It seemed thin and stringy, stretching but stiff as he couldn't seem to flex out his fingers. In fact, he couldn't even pull his hand from the door; if he tried hard enough, he might as well just pull the _door_ off its hinges.

Tony glanced up at Peter, who had shot to his feet with his right arm outstretched; his middle and ring fingers were curled inward, their tips pressing down into his palm – pressing into a small lever, which trailed up Peter's hand and around his wrist, where a clunky bracelet of metal was clipped around his wrist.

Something so obvious and out-of-place that Tony had failed to see.

He needed to do more research.

Peter's face was twisted with such a strange expression, it bordered on anger and horror; so much so that Tony preferred backing out of the room that moment. With his eyebrows scrunched and his mouth curled in a snarl and his eyes blazing, Peter hissed, 'Don't you dare. Don't you _dare_ tell our aunt what's been going on, or what you know about me or about—'

Peter blinked, eyes trailing down to the webbing encasing Tony's hand, and that murderous rage died down a little. He mumbled angrily something about retrieving the web dissolvent, which ended up being hidden in a small space beneath the floorboards. Tony watched as the boy stepped back towards him with a spray bottle in his hand and set about splashing the contents on Tony's hand.

Bit by bit, the webbing over Tony's fist dissolved into mist, a small cloud denser than air as it trailed down to the ground and dissipated. Tony flexed his fingers, trying to scrub away any excess webbing that may still be wrapped around his fingers, then looked up at Peter.

They stood there by the door, staring at each other, trying to size the other up, trying to discern weaknesses in the other and figuring out how to use that to their advantage.

And then Tony relaxed. 'Well, then, Spider-Man,' he said, clapping his hands once, twice. 'Are you going to join me, or will you stay here knowing you could do some really help for the world?'

Peter's glare came off as cold and nonchalant, but he was nodding a minute or two later. He cleaned up the mess by the door and tucked everything away – the cartridges, his web-slinging contraption, the bottle of web dissolvent, his ratty costume. He wedged them into such tight places in such a short time that Tony had already forgotten their original positions; like Peter was trying to hide every bit of evidence of his double life, even from himself.

And then Peter straightened, carded a hand through his hair and glanced at Tony, then smiled a little. 'So, um, what do we do now?' he asked a little timidly, pocketing his hands.

Tony needed to a lot more research. He needed answers to some of the more complex questions rattling around his brain.

With one of them being, _Why did Peter Parker refer to himself in the third person?_

* * *

The fight at the Leipzig/Halle Airport went as well as expected. The two sides had a few words, demonstrated the power at their disposal, threw a few fists and missiles and trashed the airport. All in all, the only thing different for Tony was that instead of fighting a bad guy, he was fighting his own team. His own friends, his _family_.

But they were the bad guys, right? They were going against the law; that made them criminals, to themselves and to others. Because of their disagreement over the Accords, they drew in people who didn't deserve to be at the airport in the first place.

T'Challa, the Black Panther, had carved his own place into the field after his father's death, so Tony deduced that he was here under his own will. There was a new man clad in a red and silvery suit who frequently changed his size and density, eerily similar to the photos of the fabled Ant-Man his father had stashed away in his office.

And then there was the kid.

Tony Stark was an arrogant, egoistic and apathetic human being. His heart would rarely thump in terror when he built suits to encase his friends and family to keep them safe. If Tony could survive bombings in his own home with a barely-assembled prototype suit, there was a huge chance that the people he was associated with would come out relatively unscathed.

That wasn't the same for Peter Parker.

As every second ticked by, a small window in Tony's HUD was left open in the corner of his vision. He glanced at it every so often, watching the numbers rise and fall, and the small graphics blur in and out of focus as Spider-Man was flung about through the air.

Tony watched as Spider-Man grunted and snarled and spat out quips against the Scarlet Witch, against the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, against Captain America, and every time he hurtled towards the ground without a strand of webbing to aid him, Tony's heart lurched into his throat because it was him. It had been _him_ , it had been _Tony_ who had brought a child to a war, which might be the last thing the kid would ever do if he ended up sprawled on the floor and crushed underfoot—

But Peter always managed to snag onto something at the last minute. Always managed to swing himself higher than last time.

And this time, Peter was flying, twirling through the air as he let torrents of webbing spiral into the air, Tony's newly crafted Spider-Man suit clinging to the boy's slender frame, blazing a brilliant crimson red and cobalt blue in the pale afternoon sun. Peter's body curved up and over the arms of the twenty-storey-tall Ant-Man fellow, movements swift and precise.

' _HEY, GUYS_!' Spider-Man's voice reverberated through Tony's comms as he yelled. He dropped on top of a fuel tanker, bolting across it as Ant-Man leaned down to swipe a massive hand at him. ' _You ever see that really old movie? Ugh, what was it, Pete—? You ever see "_ Empire Strikes Back _", guys_?'

Tony's comms crackled as the War Machine suit briefly connected with his network. Rhodey's exasperated voice filled the helmet, tinged with annoyance as he tried to chase down the elusive Falcon, his sharp voice snapping, ' _Jesus, Tony, how old_ is _this guy_?'

Heart filling with dread at the prospect of everyone finding out that a child younger than Wanda was present at this very airport, Tony belatedly grumbled, 'I don't know, I didn't carbon date him. He's on the young side, I guess.'

Rhodey gave a grunt of disbelief and whizzed around the towering Ant-Man. Tony did the same, circling the small skirmish between the insect-themed heroes while Peter continued screaming his heart out. Tony tried to ignore the decreasing functionality of the left arm of the suit in favour of watching the kid fly about, seemingly lost in his own world.

Peter ducked beneath the wing of an aeroplane, threw out a web and swung upward. His momentum carried him up above Ant-Man's torso and down over his shoulder, pulling his webbing taut as he went. Tony watched as Spider-Man skirted low to the ground, circling Ant-Man's knees and tying them together. All the while, Peter shouted, ' _You know the part – in the movie where they're on the snow planet – with the walking thingies— the AT-ATs, I knew that!_ '

Then it dawned on Tony.

It must have been obvious to Rhodey too, because his friend murmured, ' _Tony, I think the kid's onto something_.'

'References,' Tony muttered. 'He's trying to win through _references_.'

' _He ain't the only who does that_ ,' chuckled Rhodey.

'Shut up, Rhodes, and lend the kid a few repulsor gauntlets,' Tony sniped back. He tilted his body upward, and the flight stabilisers in his suit did the rest for him; they broadened then flattened, alternating quickly to help him steer. He could see War Machine momentarily give up on chasing Falcon, instead swooping low to grab an airport baggage cart and ram into the back of Ant-Man's knees; it made the giant man wobble slightly.

' _High now, Tony, go high_ ,' urged Rhodey.

Tony's flight path curved back sharply, War Machine on his heels (or repulsor boots, but only Tony cared about technicalities). Drawing his fist back as he sped up towards Ant-Man, Tony kept an eye on the small pop-up window with Peter's vitals.

He could hear Peter's voice say, ' _Hey, who are you again_?'

'Ant-Man!' yelled Ant-Man, his loud and heavy voice booming across the airport. 'No one seems to remember no matter how many times I tell them—'

' _Frankly, I've never seen you before_ ,' yelled Peter, swooping low to twist his webbing around Ant-Man's ankles. ' _By the way, you aren't small like an ant – you're giant. Doesn't that make you GiAnt-Man_?'

That shut Ant-Man up faster than a bullet. 'Damn,' muttered GiAnt-Man, clearly distracted by this new epiphany.

Tony roared out a chuckle. 'That was _fantastic_ ,' he almost yelled into the comms. Rhodey snickered in response, their suits whirring as they gained speed. Tony made sure the kid was out of the strike zone, and when he was, Tony yelled, 'Now!'

Iron Man and War Machine drew their metal-clad fists back and their suits twisted upward. Their gauntlets shot up, striking against where the soft part underneath GiAnt-Man's chin would be. The action snapped GiAnt-Man's head back with an echoing _CLANG_ , and his balance was immediately skewed sideways.

' _Yes_!' yelled Peter, swinging around from a web latched to GiAnt-Man's shoulder as he fell backwards. Tony pulled his suit to a stop and hovered in the air when he caught sight of Spider-Man whizzing through his visor, the kid's free hand whipping out to flash a thumbs up sign at War Machine and Iron Man. The kid's joy was almost so infectious that Tony had to smile.

' _Ha-ha_!' Peter continued cheering, swinging around.' _That was awesome_ —!'

GiAnt-Man's flailing hand fell into Spider-Man's path as he tried to regain balance. The kid's webbing snapped in two and he was harshly batted away, flung across the airport before he landed on the concrete and rolled into a pile of wooden crates.

The vitals in Tony's pop-up window suddenly spiked.

His stomach suddenly dropped.

'Oh, God,' breathed Tony.

He was already zooming across the landing strip when Rhodey's voice rose up to ask what was wrong, but Tony wasn't listening. Flight stabilisers clicking and flicking outward, his repulsor gauntlets and boots spitting out waning bits of energy to slow his momentum, Tony dropped to the ground jogging slightly, his helmet dissembling itself from around his head like water.

The natural light of the world hit his artificial light-accustomed eyes, and Tony was staggering for a moment before his gaze landed on the prone body lying a few metres away. There was a dry rasping sound, like heaving. Like a death rattle.

 _Oh, no_ , Tony thought wildly. _Oh, no. No, no, no, no—_

His feet were moving, and soon he was dropping to the ground next Spider-Man's back, his armoured knees hitting the ground with a dull _clunk_. He could see Peter's chest shake with every breath he wheezed in, and his mask was pulled up slightly.

'Kid, you alright?' asked Tony softly.

It was like lightning coursed through Peter's body.

Peter's form jerked upright, an animalistic growl erupting from deep in his throat as he lashed out at Tony. One fist glanced off Tony's chest plate, right across his arc reactor, pushing him back slightly, but Tony was ready. As Peter aimed another punch at Tony, clearly blinded by an aggressive panic, Tony's hand shot out and his gauntlet clamped around Peter's wrist, holding it in place in the air. Peter went in for another strike, but Tony caught his other hand and pressed them both close to Peter's struggling body to prevent him from attacking again. Tony said loudly, 'Woah! Same side! Guess who?'

Peter immediately stilled upon hearing Tony's voice. Body still tense, he looked up at him. The mask had been drawn halfway up his face at an uneven angle, so his right eye was squinting against the light while his left was covered by the mask.

Recognition flooded Peter's visible eye.

'Hi,' Tony said.

Immediately relaxing against the ground, Peter sighed, 'Oh. Hey, man...That was scary...'

'Yeah,' agreed Tony. His gaze flickered up and down Peter's body, trying to find any beginnings of a serious wound covered by the Spider-Man suit like a broken rib or a slash or maybe some blood. Nothing of the sort, but on the right side of his body where he received the brunt of GiAnt-Man's flailing hand he curled inward on himself, and there were the beginnings of a bruise blooming under his right eye.

 _Bruise buddies_ , Tony couldn't help but think. _We both have a bruise in the same spot._

Tony was then about to say something when Peter asked, 'Hey, is everyone okay?'

Tony raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him. 'You're fighting and you're asking if the enemy is okay?'

'Yeah. Is he okay?'

'Who, GiAnt-Man? Oh, wait, I didn't mean to call him by his stupid nickname—'

'No. I meant Peter.'

Tony froze. His eye twitched and he licked his lips as he stared down at Peter. He stared back up, his brown eye flashing and narrowed and filled with concern, his pale face marred by the pinkish hue of the bruise on his cheek, shaky breaths being quickly inhaled and exhaled. His jaw was set, squarish and angular, not soft and rounded like a child, such as when he first met Peter in the Parker residence. There, he was timid and quiet and happy. Here, he was strong and hardened and determined.

Up close, Tony realised there more things different about Peter than he initially thought.

'Peter?' Tony repeated after a moment, still gazing at him.

The boy beneath him gave him an exasperated look. 'Yes,' he said, rolling his eye as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 'How is he? Is he hurt?'

Something knotted in Tony's chest as he shook his head. 'Peter's fine,' he told the kid softly, patting him softly on the shoulder. 'Nothing at all. Really strong kid, that one.'

The kid nodded slightly, his gaze a little lost. 'I keep telling him that, but he just never believes me,' he said, voice a little forlorn, strained and tired. 'He thinks I'm just some sort of temporary confidence boost.'

'I...' Tony's voice faltered.

What was he supposed to say? The moment he left the Parker residence all those weeks ago, he had researched about why people sometimes spoke about themselves in the third person. He eventually found illeism, and he found out that nearly everyone did it – bad guys to ordinary citizens to superhero billionaires, each one spoke about themselves as a separate person to improve their views of themselves. To display a sense of power, of strength. He'd assumed Peter had picked up that habit to help regain his confidence after everything he had gone through.

But now, he realised, there was something running much deeper than the cracks on the surface.

'Peter is fine,' Tony said again, 'and I hope you are, too. Speaking of, I don't think I got your name.'

'I didn't give it to you,' the kid said in defence, the skin around his eye crinkling as if he was furrowing his eyebrows.

In response, Tony raised his own eyebrows, trying to draw out an answer. Although, inside, he was swamped with confusion and doubt and worry. 'Come on, kid, give me something to work with.'

Was this even _how_ you were supposed to handle this?

He was not prepared. The moment he found the web-slinging hero, Tony was not prepared for what was to come.

The kid looked on for a moment, then said, 'I'm Spider-Man.'

* * *

Tony sent him home. There was no room for argument. He pulled Peter— no, _Spider-Man_ , to his feet, hauled him back to their rendezvous point and told him to leave the airport and go back to the German hotel he had stayed a couple of days prior.

As far as he could tell, Tony wasn't actually sure how to handle this.

The moment Rhodey dropped out of the sky when the two of them tried to chase after the Quinjet in which Rogers and Barnes had fled in, Tony figured he wasn't ready to handle anything.

The moment he had shoved Captain America's side of the Avengers into vans and had agents cart them off to prison while he held onto Rhodey's motionless body, Tony knew that deep down he never would be able to handle anything.

Everything he touched ended in fire, so what was the point in trying to weld broken shards back together?

That was the only thought circling in his mind as he sat in the back of a taxi, one leg folded over the other with his hands clasped against his knees. Tony glanced at the hologram projected from his phone next to him, which cycled through the most recent news regarding the Avengers: the airport clash, the Accords, rumours of new members, photographs, private government sites and files littered with a trove of data.

Tony sighed, then shut off his phone, gently rubbing his left wrist has he leaned back into the seat. The taxi, thankfully, had a tinted partition between him and the driver; he wouldn't be able to see or hear anything Tony did.

Which was fine by him, because then he picked up his phone again and murmured to it, 'F.R.I.D.A.Y.?'

The phone screen lit up with a soft blue glow. ' _Hello, Boss_ ,' came F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s cool and accented voice.

'Would you do me a favour and give me a run down on...split personalities?' Tony winced at his lack of awareness of the topic. He ought to know about these things. He knew about Maximoff's somewhat fragile mental state. He knew about Barton's deafness. He knew about Romanoff's lack of pain receptors. He knew about Rogers' drawings, one of the only ways to help him get through his day-to-day life without sinking into the horrors of the wars he had fought.

Tony had taken upon himself to find every weakness in his teammates and make life just a little more bearable for them.

Surely, he could do that for a teenager. But first, he'd need research. And that was what Tony Stark did best at.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. was silent for a moment before she pulled up a few sites and articles regarding dissociative identity disorder (' _It is no longer referred to as_ multiple personality disorder,' F.R.I.D.A.Y. gently corrected him. ' _Medical agencies changed its term many years ago_ ').

By the time he had made it back to the German hotel, Tony could easily summarise what he had learned in nine words: two or more distinct mindsets occupying a single body. Sometimes the personalities swapped, just like for any other person, but Tony figured it was on the extreme end of the spectrum of dissociation – to the point each personality had a life of its own, and the original personality would lose track of time of the real world.

Tony could see it. God, he could _see_ it, see how it applied to Peter.

So far, he'd only seen timid and kind Peter Parker, the son of Mary and Richard Parker who was adopted by his uncle since he was the only other blood relative, who died when he was only seven; and he'd seen the aggressively confident and quippy Spider-Man, a teenaged vigilante with spider powers whose sole focus was keeping the oppressed and the innocent safe.

Tony couldn't help but associate the whole situation with that film _Split_. Because, come on, ordinary characters who had their fragmented identities living together in one small noggin? That truly was a testament of how complex their world was.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tony pocketed all of his smaller items and made to exit the taxi. He flashed a smile at the driver, and watched the silver Mercedes drive off in a blur of smoke and dust. He turned to find the hotel, nestled in amongst the tall buildings in central Berlin, and once he did, he stalked towards the entrance, his phone already out to call Happy and tell him to pack their bags.

* * *

The car ride from Stark Industries' private hangar to Queens was a somewhat loud one, both comfortable and uncomfortable. Comfortable because Peter had relaxed around Tony's presence and was more than happy to tell him of the many things occupying his brilliant mind. Uncomfortable because Spider-Man was always on-guard, his fists clenching and unclenching, and was wary of revealing any personal information.

Also uncomfortable because Tony had no idea who he was talking to half the time.

In the short time they had been together, Tony had deduced on the plane ride from Berlin to New York that there were only two distinct identities in Peter's body. He often found Peter mumbling to himself and then going about his day like he had just woken up. Only Spider-Man talked about Peter as a separate person; Peter apparently had no idea he literally had a double life.

Even while Tony was by no means a medical professional, that only meant breaking the news would be a lot harder than he realised.

Happy had just driven the car through upper Manhattan when Tony turned to Peter and asked, 'Knock knock, who's home?'

Tony couldn't exactly differentiate the two personalities, so he'd opted for just outright asking. Spider-Man caught on pretty quick, but when Peter asked why Tony would ask such a ridiculous question, Tony had lied that it was a thing he and the Avengers did in their spare time together; doing this supposedly meant that Tony recognised Peter as a hard-working individual, to which he then said he would be more than happy to answer the odd but recurring question.

Peter's finger tapped his chin as he answered, 'Peter's here.'

'Okay, very cool,' Tony said. His own fingers were trembling from their squished position in between his knees as he asked, 'Hey, you feeling alright?'

'I'm good,' said Peter, his voice light and airy. 'I have to say the...grant was great. Great grant. Ha-ha. I, I mean, uh...I had a really good time, thank you, Mr. Stark, sir.'

'Seriously, you don't need to call me _Mr. Stark_ ,' Tony reminded him for the umpteenth time. 'Mr. Stark was my dad, and I'm very sure that I'm not him.' Peter nodded slowly, and turned away in favour of watching the dark scenery of night time New York fly by, his leg bouncing up and down. Tony bit his lip as he asked again, 'Are you alright?'

'Um, yeah.'

'I just wanted to ask because...the whole grant thing, as much as it's exciting, it can be stressful to some degree. You don't happen to be forgetting things while you work, right?'

Peter frowned, his face pinched in thought. 'That's a really specific thing to be asking about,' he said after a moment. 'I— I mean, sure, you wouldn't want to have the younger generation be a, a stuttering mess, right? Forgetting our palm cards and speeches and presentations?' He tried to go in for a nervous chuckle, but upon seeing Tony's unaffected expression, Peter sighed and leaned back in his seat.

They passed another block or two in silence when Peter said softly, 'I get blackouts, sometimes.'

That little titbit of information perked Tony's attention. 'Oh?'

'I— I don't really tell anyone about it,' Peter admitted a little embarrassedly. 'But if we are moving along with the grant and our projects and you are concerned for everyone's wellbeing, I guess it wouldn't hurt to come clean, I guess?'

Tony waved his hand in encouragement. 'Okay. Blackouts. How long do these usually go for? How often do you get 'em?'

'Maybe...um, they're maybe a few minutes long at the very least. I think my longest blackout went for a day or two, where I would completely forget what happened. They kinda happen a lot in the evening.'

That was concerning. 'When did these blackouts start?' Tony asked softly.

Peter shrugged. 'I've had them for some time. I think they started when I was nearing eight or nine, a year after my parents died. They got a lot worse after maybe a half year ago.' Peter's face grew solemn, then. 'Sometime after my...my uncle passed away. I don't think I've gotten enough sleep since.'

 _The kid thinks his uncle's death led to insomnia_ , Tony thought sourly. _And if he's right, and the blackouts did start after his parents' deaths, then that could be the time of Spider-Man's emergence, when the alter first split off._ _And Spider-Man did technically operate during evening hours, so there goes sleep in the equation..._

Tony turned to look at Peter, who was staring at the small space between the back seats and the passenger's seat with a blank, empty look in his eyes; lost in his own world, submerged in a sea where he had yet to realised that he was not the only one there.

'Knock knock, who's home?' asked Tony.

'Spider-Man,' was the murmured reply. Tony watched as Spider-Man surveyed the car, leaning forward to peek at the back of Happy's head before settling back down in his seat.

'You had a good time?' Tony asked him, cocking his head.

Spider-Man huffed as he turned to look at Tony, brown eyes dark and reflective. The bruise under his right eye was swollen and purple, but even Tony could tell it was almost halfway through the healing process.

'I've had better days,' Spider-Man admitted after a moment. 'Of course, no one goes toe-to-toe with the _Avengers_ every day.'

'Hmm, yeah. Hey, does your aunt know?'

Furrowing his eyebrows, Spider-Man asked, 'May? What do you mean?'

'Does she know...you exist?' Tony gesticulated to Peter's entire body. Spider-Man looked down at it, gazing at his hands as if he were expecting to see bright reds and blues cloaking his body with silvery highlights adorning his wrists. 'Does she know the amazing Spider-Man lives under her very roof?'

'She doesn't,' Spider-Man said stiffly. 'We wouldn't want to put that on her; wouldn't want to put _anything_ on her. She doesn't deserve that. Not after everything we've been through.'

'But...'

May didn't know? May _didn't know?_ How could Peter— Spider-Man— how could _either_ of them not tell her what had been happening? This was something serious, something that concerned their health, how could they...how...

Tony pursed his lips. 'I think she deserves to know,' he told Spider-Man. 'You're all she has left.'

'No,' Spider-Man said. 'No, you can't say that.'

'I'm just stating facts,' Tony emphasised. 'Spidey, she...wouldn't want to see you get hurt and not know how it happened. Trust me, I've been through that. It never ends happily.'

Spider-Man turned away. His clenched fists shook. 'The only reason I'm here is because _you_ needed help with the Avengers,' he grumbled. 'Counselling wasn't a part of the deal. You weren't supposed to...supposed to interfere with my— _our_ life. We were fine without you.'

Spider-Man suddenly shifted in his seat as he turned to face Tony with a heated look in his eyes. 'Listen,' the protective identity said, 'we don't go around telling people we're Spider-Man. Or, at least Peter, anyways; as much as I want him to recognise me, I also _don't_ want him to, and I think he feels the same. If people found out...what would that make us? Freaks?' Spider-Man shook his head fiercely. 'Everyone we had ever known would be a target. If a bad guy gets their hands on someone we know who accidentally outs us, they'd go after Peter Parker, and Peter Parker wouldn't know why he'd be targeted by street thugs and bad guys. He'll be dead before I could take over.'

Sighing, Spider-Man rubbed a hand over his bruise. 'I can't...'

Spider-Man was silent after that.

The words were a painful stab to Tony's heart. It hurt to see how someone as young and as broken as Peter and Spider-Man try to push others away for the insurance of safety. For both themselves and for others around them.

Just like Tony had.

 _But Peter's a good kid_ , Tony thought strongly to himself. _It doesn't matter if he's got a second or a third or a tenth version of him running through his mind. He's better than every one of the Avengers combined, and damn if I don't try to help him._

_Peter Parker and Spider-Man are capable of so much._

_I will do whatever it takes to show them that._

_Show them how they can't lose themselves._

* * *

Their relationship spiralled.

Tony caught sight of that when F.R.I.D.A.Y. had interrupted him in the middle of biophysicist Amara Perera's wedding all the way in India, two months after the clash in Germany, in favour of alerting him about the Spider-Man suit exceeding the maximum height limit of 1500 feet outside of New York's cityscape.

He naturally had F.R.I.D.A.Y. deploy Mark LXVII and remotely piloted it to rescue the kid from splattering into a mess of guts and unearned glory, and he tried to get Spider-Man to see sense in trying to chase after a man in a mechanised bird suit.

Words were shared, and Tony might have gone overboard just slightly—

' _Look, forget the flying vulture guy, please_.'

' _Why_?'

' _Why?! Because I said so! Listen, stay close to the ground, build up your game helping the little people_.'

' _When did you think it would be a great idea for you to tell me how to do my own job? It's not like you told me to become who I am_.'

—the two of them roared, two lions trying to dominate the other, but in the end Spider-Man admitted that Peter Parker was about to wake up if they argued any longer, and knowing that the Peter fragment of consciousness in that body, soaking wet from almost drowning in a lake with his muscles convulsing from shivers and the after-effects of adrenaline, waking up would put a risk in finding out about his double life, Tony's suit took to the skies, leaving behind a sopping wet teenaged superhero to mope about the place.

In hindsight, that was a bad idea, considering that was only a few days ago.

Now, the consequences of that night were coming back to bite him in the rear because now there was a ferry, choked with people, splitting in half in open water with Spider-Man tearing himself apart trying to hold the whole damn thing together.

This time, the kid was lucky that Tony was back in New York. The kid was lucky that he didn't die that afternoon, along with another two hundred people. The kid was lucky.

He just...was.

Which made it all the more painful for Tony to fly back up to a nearby tower after helping rescue services reach the ferry. It made it more painful for him to hover directly behind the red-and-blue costumed fledgling of a hero who only tried to do his best. But everyone knew, doing your best wasn't necessarily _the_ best that could have happened.

'Previously, on Spidey Screws the Pooch,' Tony mocked, 'I tell you to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multibillion-dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do.'

Spider-Man remained silent, his fingers scrunching up the mask in his hands.

'Spidey,' Tony called. 'Listen to me. What you did down there was _unacceptable_. People could have been hurt because you jumped headlong into danger you didn't understand.'

Spider-Man was still quiet.

'Oh, come on,' hissed Tony. 'Spider-Man, are you even listening? I know you hate me, but that doesn't give you the excuse to do whatever you want just because you feel like doing it!'

A twitch. 'Don't call me that,' Spider-Man said softly.

Tony raised an eyebrow, but his heart thumped with curiosity. Spider-Man's voice had only gone this soft once or twice. What had he said?

He lowered the suit until it hovered just above the roof of the tower. He twitched his fingers, and the front half of the suit opened up, metallic components disassembling like clockwork to allow Tony to jump down onto the concrete roof. Tony was clad in his black three-piece, usually reserved for non-essential meetings, and he had gotten the call from his A.I. in the middle of said non-essential meeting when she picked up unusual radiation from Whitehall Terminal.

Sniffing briskly, Tony stepped closer to Spider-Man. 'Spidey?' he called softly.

And then the sobbing started.

But the sounds of sobbing weren't ones Tony could associate with Spider-Man. They weren't harsh and sharp and quick and cold like the determined superhero. These ones were long and low and desperate and pained and so _young_. Filled with an innocence that Tony had managed to only catch a rare glimpse of nowadays, before it was overshadowed by Spider-Man's silhouette.

Peter Parker was crying.

His stiff posture crumbled, and he curled in on himself. He quickly threw his mask to the ground, whirling around to face Tony with a tear-streaked face, edged with anger and desperation and betrayal.

'Stop calling me that!' Peter yelled at Tony. 'Stop calling me _Spider-Man!_ That's not who I am! I'm not him!'

'Peter?' Tony said.

Peter roughly ran a hand over his face, trying to quieten his sobs. 'I can hear you,' he wept. 'I can hear e-everything you and Spider-Man talk a-about. You say you want to keep me in the dark. To not know about...about _this_.' He gesticulated wildly to his gloved hands, the red splashed across them like blood.

Tony winced and stepped closer. Peter edged away.

'Peter,' Tony said again, guilt and shame clawing at his heart, 'I— I didn't know. You said you blacked out often, and that was usually when Spider-Man would appear. The amnesia would be there to block off anything we talked about. I didn't—'

'Co-conscious,' Peter hissed. 'I was in the passenger seat while Spider-Man had the wheel. I was there, I'm _always_ there, and you thought it would be a great idea to hide it from me? Why didn't you ever tell me that you _knew_ I had another person running around in my head?

'I've been living a life where everything is being torn apart!' yelled Peter. 'I've been living a life where someone else has been taking over the things I do! Being with my friends, Decathlon, the homecoming dance, even May – all of that is being destroyed because _he just couldn't leave me alone!_ We could have done something about it if you had _just told me_!'

A blank look entered Peter's eyes, and then Tony was looking at Spider-Man. The superhero clenched his fist as he growled, 'I told him that we didn't _need_ to tell anyone.' A pause, and Tony watched as Spider-Man listened to whatever Peter was saying. 'I did it for you!' snapped Spider-Man, face twisting. 'I did it for you because if you found out, we'd be at an even bigger risk of other people finding who we were. I did it for you because you couldn't handle death like any other person!'

Silence rolled like thunder across the rooftop. So heavy and thick and powerful that it had Tony stepping backwards for a moment. The yells of the two boys, both pained and hurt for their own reasons in their own broken way, died down as everyone present on that roof registered what Spider-Man said.

_You couldn't handle death like any other person!_

The pieces were slowly fitting together, and Tony made a sound of pure shock and agony.

Because it made _sense_. Just like how he had accepted Peter Parker and Spider-Man being two different people in one body, it made sense to see just exactly _why_ the Spider-Man fragment of Peter's conscious had split into existence.

The alters sunk to their knees and put the rest of their weight on their ankles and shins. There was an empty look in their eyes, dissociating, blending between both Peter and Spider-Man, and even from here Tony could feel the turmoil burning intensely from within the boys' minds.

Tony left his suit behind, left it whirring and floating like a watchful guardian as he stepped closer to the boys. He sat directly across from them, hands splayed across the concrete as he tried to lower himself to the boys' height. The empty look was still there, before a soft light within them had them focusing on something—

'He used to be called Harry,' said one alter – Peter, Tony assumed. 'He was my friend when I was in elementary; first grade, I think. Harry Osborn was a real person in my class, a real, nice person, but he was sick. Really sick; he died before the end of the year, and suddenly, sometimes, I could hear Harry's voice, even when he wasn't there, telling me to stay strong.' Peter sniffed. 'I just thought...it was because I missed him. I thought I had magicked up a pretend-Harry to make the pain seem a little less painful.

'And then my parents,' said Peter. 'They went out one day just after I had turned seven, and they had left me at Ben and May's. They were CIA agents, apparently, off on a mission. They didn't come back, but the news delivered by the government was already there: they had died on an expedition to Egypt. Some psychopath had planted a bomb in the plane they were in.

'I didn't know what to feel,' whispered Peter, looking up at Tony, a torrent of emotions swirling in his irises.

And then Spider-Man surfaced, gently nudging Peter into the spot next to him as he said, 'And that's okay. I...I think things took a real bad turn for us when Ben died.' Spider-Man glanced off into the distance, before turning his hardened gaze back to Tony. 'I think...maybe it took a really bad turn for _me_. Peter seemed to accept that things just didn't work out for us, but...I was to blame for. It was because of me, my recklessness, that got Ben killed.'

Spider-Man shrugged, wringing his hands. 'We were bitten by that spider. Peter panicked; I took over without meaning to. Whatever that bite did, I think it just cemented the rift between us. Peter didn't know I was here, and he didn't know we had powers because _I_ was the one there who saw it happen; amnesia dissociation kept it from reaching Peter.

'And then we were fighting,' Spider-Man said. 'Ben and I, or maybe it was Ben and Peter, I don't know...we were fighting, and we left. Just walked around, went to a store to buy a snack or two – it was late, and we skipped out on dinner. Some guy was shoving us around to get to the counter to pay counterfeit money for some drugs that were out-of-stock. And then Ben found us, tried to calm that man down, but then he— he—'

Spider-Man stopped. And Tony didn't press for more, because he knew how the story ended.

What had been an accident was a trigger-happy drug addict. A death wrongfully dealt out. And a figure who crawled from the shadows to simply avenge that loss.

Spider-Man hung his head, and then Tony couldn't stop himself. He leaned forward and gripped the back of Spider-Man's head and his waist and pulled him close, pressing them together and letting both Spider-Man and Peter melt into the soft gesture Tony had rarely ever given.

'I'm so sorry,' Tony finally said, his voice muffled as he pressed his mouth against the boys' scalp. 'I'm so sorry. I should have done more. I didn't think maybe leaving you alone like that to sort out your identities would be a bad idea. I'm...not good with people, frankly.'

'You were doing well so far,' Peter murmured dryly.

'It was a stupid move on my part,' admitted Tony. 'You needed help, and I didn't think of giving it you. I need help to help you. It's a horrible feedback loop, isn't it? God, we both need a therapist. And maybe some kind of instruction manual to figure out how to live life.'

'We don't need a therapist,' Spider-Man then said crisply. 'It's too much. Like, we wouldn't be able to afford that. It's one reason why we never really told anyone—'

'Who said you would be the ones paying?' asked Tony. He felt Spider-Man stiffen in his arms. 'Listen, we have to get this out of the way; May still doesn't know, does she? The first thing you need to you, after I berate both of for your pretty reckless actions today, is to tell her what you told me. You don't even need to tell her that you're Spider-Man; keep that Harry name if you wish, but we're going to make this better by not keeping in secrets, so that's what we're going to do.'

Spider-Man was silent as he and Peter thought things over. While they dissociated, Tony murmured softly into their hair, 'You know, when I first met you, I thought you were just trying be confident and polite around me. But then I realised it ran a lot deeper than that when we were in Germany. That's when I found there were two of you. And I told myself, _These kids are so talented and have so much potential. They could do so much things that the Avengers, and even I, wouldn't be able to do_.'

Tony stroked their hair gently, soothingly. 'You're both good kids, you know that?' he asked rhetorically. 'Even when you make mistakes, I guess...I guess that's just how we become better. It doesn't matter that you're two parts of a whole, or if there's a legion inside you. You're both good. And I will be there to try to help you guys become the best you could ever be.'

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! Hope you liked it! If you skipped to this end note, that's cool too! High-fives for all!!! *wa-poosh!*
> 
> Now there are a few things I want to say about this, however.
> 
> I do not have DID. I don't have family who has DID, nor do I have friends who have DID. But that hasn't stopped me from learning about this complex disorder and appreciating the people who do have it. If you are someone out there with DID...*thumbs up* you're cool. You and your entire system of alters, you're all glorious. Know that I'll support each and everyone of you should you ever need it.
> 
> Now, dissociative identity disorder is pretty complex, but I guess it's complexity lends to what we see in media today, I guess. I find it interesting because it's complex, but it's...honestly? It's kind of sad to see how it is presented in media and our everyday lives. Like, those horror movies like Split? Glass? Chandramukhi? They all kind of present DID as this kind of supernatural, horror trope. DID isn't just a plot device, Hollywood! I'd honestly love to watch a movie where we see a person with DID going through their everyday lives and interacting with their system.
> 
> Anyway. Let's all support this rather wonderful community of peeps, yeah? Each one is just as wonderful as you are, so be as friendly and as supportive as you can! They've got their stories and problems just like you, so be mindful and respectful to them; treat them like how you would want others to treat you. 
> 
> So *waves* I hope you enjoyed my TedTalk. Hope you enjoyed this story. Hope you learned something new. If there's anything in this oneshot that needs fixing, tell me right away. I hope you are all safe and happy!! Stay safe and happy, fellas!!
> 
> ~DemigodOfAgni


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